Bredfield Wildlife
  • Home
  • Nature
    • Nature in danger
    • How you can help locally
    • What others are doing
  • Gardens
    • Wildlife-friendly gardens
    • Making your garden wildlife-friendly
  • Green Spaces
    • Bredfield’s green spaces
    • Bredfield’s wildlife
  • Connecting
    • Connecting with nature
    • Learning resources
  • Bredfield
    • About Bredfield
    • Jubilee meadow and orchard
    • Our support
  • Contact us
  • Home
  • Nature
    • Nature in danger
    • How you can help locally
    • What others are doing
  • Gardens
    • Wildlife-friendly gardens
    • Making your garden wildlife-friendly
  • Green Spaces
    • Bredfield’s green spaces
    • Bredfield’s wildlife
  • Connecting
    • Connecting with nature
    • Learning resources
  • Bredfield
    • About Bredfield
    • Jubilee meadow and orchard
    • Our support
  • Contact us
12th April 2021 In Events

Coming to a church near you

Wildflowers!  On the afternoon of Sunday 11th April, a group of six residents took their forks, spades, trowels and rakes to the grounds of St Andrews church, Bredfield, to clear a patch for wildflowers.  There were three adults and three members of the next generation. The Parochial Parish Council has generously given us a small part of the church grounds for a wildflower area. 

Before and after

The best turfing techniques were used to clear the area of grass.  After a light raking and flattening, a variety of wildflower and wild grass seeds were sown.  Amongst the flower seeds are:  Lady’s Bedstraw, Bird’s Foot Trefoil, Meadow Cranesbill, Knapweed, Selfheal, Tufted Vetch, Yellow Rattle and Perforated St John’s Wort.  Amongst the wild grass seeds are: Crested Dogstail, three varieties of Fescue, and Highland Bent.  This variety of pollinators will attract bees and butterflies, as well as a range of other insects.  In future months, we’ll be monitoring what comes to the wildflower patch.

You shouldn’t expect an array of wildflowers to appear soon.  Something will happen this year, but the best display of flowers will appear next year.

Thank you to all who helped – young and old.  Thank you also to Nick and Helen, who kindly donated a couple of Buddleia.  We’ve planted these on the low bank behind the patch, and soon butterflies will come to dine out on the flowers.

Removing the turf

How church grounds should look and be landscaped is a matter of cultural importance.  St Andrew’s has a broad swathe of grass at the front.  This is the ‘look’ that people associate with the church and it should remain.  Areas around the gravestones, where people visit family graves, need to be mowed to allow access.  However, St Andrew’s church grounds are large enough to accommodate patches and corners which are more wildlife-friendly.  It’s an achievable balance that can be replicated elsewhere. 

If you are interested in how this balance happens in other churches, here are two other east-Suffolk churches where, in different ways, the grounds are managed for wildlife: St Mary and St Peter’s church in Kelsale, near Saxmundham (see photo); and All Saint’s church in Sudbourne, near Orford, which is now one of the last refuges in Suffolk of the Wall Brown butterfly. To see what’s happening on a wider scale, visit the website of Caring for God’s Acre.

Article by Bredfield: Wildlife Friendly Village

Previous StoryThe fall of the Song Thrush
Next StoryFocus on Spurge

RECENT ARTICLES

  • Lords-and-Ladies
  • We need to talk about Box
  • Moles and molehills – a plea for tolerance
  • The Wonder of Flower Names
  • Bredfield’s Dark Skies

ARCHIVES

  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • June 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021

Nature

  • Nature in danger
  • How you can help locally
  • What others are doing
  • News

Gardens

  • Wildlife-friendly gardens
  • Making your garden wildlife-friendly

Green Spaces

  • Bredfield’s green spaces
  • Bredfield’s wildlife

Connecting

  • Connecting with nature
  • Learning resources

Bredfield

  • About Bredfield
  • Jubilee meadow and orchard
  • Our support

 

Bredfield Wildlife | Built by CAS IT Services | Cookie Policy | Accessibility Statement | Privacy Policy

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings.

Bredfield Wildlife
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.